I have to say, this blog series is so much fun to put together each week. Even though I reply to your comments and questions a couple of times each day on the blog, making this round-up inspires me to dig a bit deeper and try new things to help troubleshoot. I also learn so many interesting things from you all, and absolutely love sharing your tips for others to read! Let’s dive in, shall we?!
Q1. Hey Angela! With how popular superfood powders are, I’m curious if you consume any on a regular basis?
Hi Monika, I can’t say that I use many superfood powders! They tend to be expensive and I’d personally rather spend that money on quality produce. I also want my recipes to be accessible. That said, there are a couple I like to use: DoMatcha Organic Green Tea Powder (I make green tea lattes with it and add it to smoothies) and Sprout Living Broccoli & Kale Sprout Mix. The latter is a powder made from broccoli and kale sprouts that have been gently dried and milled—I also add this to smoothies for a plant-powered boost!
Q2. Your coffee always looks so delicious on Insta Stories! Do you mind sharing exactly how you make it (including the proportions used)? My track record isn’t that good when I “wing” a recipe!
That’s too funny, Susan—I’ve definitely had my own fair share of “winging it” disasters! I love to start my day with French press coffee, and have a couple different ways of making it. I’m not a coffee expert by any means, but I’m happy to share both ways that I prepare it!
Basic French press coffee:
I start by grinding coffee beans—I like the “Mug Shot” organic coffee from Toronto-based brand 23 Degrees Roastery, and find grinding the beans morning-of makes them extra fresh and flavourful. I scoop two heaping tablespoons of ground coffee into my small (2-cup/500 mL) French press (from Ikea). Next, I bring a small pot of water to a boil before turning off the heat to let the water sit for 15 seconds or so. Then I pour just enough water into the French press to saturate my coffee grounds before giving the mixture a stir. After this pre-soak, I add the rest of the hot water to the French press, filling to about a 1/2-inch below the top of the vessel. I secure the lid of the French press and set my timer for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, I press the coffee with the plunger and pour it into my mug before stirring in a mix of Nutpods French Vanilla Creamer and Califia Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk.
Blender coffee:
I follow all of the basic French press coffee-making steps above except for adding the creamer, and instead I pour the steeped coffee into my blender. Then I add 1/2 tablespoon of Nutiva’s MCT (Medium-chain triglyceride) oil along with a tablespoon of Nutpods French vanilla creamer. Finally, I secure the lid and blend the coffee for about 20 to 30 seconds (tip: make sure your blender lid is vented as it can explode if it’s not!). After blending, I pour into a mug and enjoy!
Full disclosure: When I need coffee yesterday (which is pretty much 98% of the time), I skip both the 15-second water resting and pre-soak periods, simply filling the French press with boiled water (this is technically a “no-no” as you can burn the coffee, but trust me when I say I’ve compared both methods and my sleepy taste buds tell me they’re virtually the same, lol). Then I follow the rest of the procedure as listed. On the average day, I like to have one of these in the morning, one in the afternoon (my caffeine cut-off is 3pm!), and a mild Matcha green tea thrown in between. #dontjudge ;)
Q3. Hi Angela, I want to make your new Easy Vegan Sugar Cookies as a surprise for my vegan husband. :) Instead of electric beaters, do you think I can blend the pink frosting in a food processor? Thanks!
Hi Nathalie, what a cute surprise for your husband! I wouldn’t have thought to make frosting in the food processor…such a fun idea! Your question made me super curious, so I just had to test it out in my food processor to see. I’m happy to report that the frosting came together quite well with this method. I tried adding the vegan butter first to “whip” it, but I found the butter just stuck to the sides of the processor bowl, so I’d recommend adding all of the ingredients into the processor at the same time. I also found that I needed to add a bit more almond milk than usual and had to stop to scrape the bowl down a few times throughout. I hope this helps you have pink frosting success!
Q4. Hi, is tomato paste the same as tomato purée?
Hey cb, Great question! Tomato purée and tomato paste are made using different methods, which accounts for their distinct flavours and textures. Tomato paste is made by cooking tomatoes slowly until they become thick and pasty, resulting in tomato paste’s sweet, rich, and intense flavour (similar to sundried tomatoes). Tomato paste tends to be sold in small cans or jars, whereas I find tomato purée is mostly sold in larger quantities. Tomato purée is made more quickly, cooking tomatoes briefly to soften before processing into purée, resulting in a thinner consistency and flavour more like that of fresh tomatoes. In the photo above, tomato paste is on the left and tomato purée is on the right. (A special thanks to Livestrong for the distinction.) With all this talk of tomato sauce, I’m now craving spaghetti squash with marinara! lol.
Q5. Hi! Your Roasted Carrot and Dill Hummus recipe sounds amazing!! Just wondering if it’s best made the day you want to eat it or just as good made the night before?
Hey Larissa, My recipe tester and I found the flavours were a bit better the day of, but it’ll still keep well in the fridge for 3 to 5 days. Homemade hummus thickens when chilling, so it’s probably best to let it come to room temperature before serving so your dip can soften (if you can wait that long!). :)
Q6. Hi Angela! I love the rebranding of the Friday FAQs series to “Ask Angela”—I think that’s a great idea! I’ve wanted to ask you for ages whether you have an Instant Pot and whether any of your recipes would be suited for it? What with this Instant Pot craze going on now, I’d love to be able to make your delicious recipes quickly in this new gadget!
Hey Sandra, ohh you know what? I’ve been asked this question a lot lately and it’s making me super curious about Instant Pots! I don’t have one as I’ve been trying to avoid purchasing another small appliance, but I have considered it. I’d love to hear about your own experience, though!
I’m also curious how many OSG readers use an Instant Pot these days, and would love to hear from you all in the comments!
Do you have one and would you recommend it (if so, which version/model do you have)? Have you tried any of my recipes in the Instant Pot successfully, and if so, which ones worked best? Would you like to see new Oh She Glows recipes developed specifically for use in an Instant Pot? Thank you so much for chiming in! I’ve been wanting to ask about this for a while. I may also do a poll on Insta Stories soon too. :)
“I love your 10-Spice Vegetable Soup! I found this recipe a year ago and make it about twice a month. It is so versatile. I can make it very spicy for our family or less spicy for those who do not love spicy food. I shared it with some co-workers and they love it too! Thanks so much for the amazing work you put into your site and recipes. We are paying attention and the world is getting healthier one recipe at a time thanks to you Angela! Keep up the great work!”
Hey Lyne, It really means the world to me to read this! I agree about how easy it is to customize the spice level in the 10-Spice Soup. I always add a lot more to my own portion (I’ve been known to dump it on!) because I can’t get enough of that intense flavour. Getting healthier one recipe at a time…I LOVE that!! Thank you.
I lovvveee my Instant Pot. Since both my husband and I are working full time outside home, it is a lifesaver for us. I have used almost all the features except slow cooking and yogurt making.
Yes! Please do purchase and create recipes for the cult following of the Instant Pot:) there are a sh*t ton of recipes out there—but not many amazing ones for us veggies!
I have an instant pot and love it. The only that that would make it better would be some Oh She Glows recipes for my instant pot!! Love all your recipes, I share your web site with everyone I know!! :)
Hi Angela,
I want to start by saying thank you for what you do. By keeping up with your blog as well as two others I have been able to transition to a much healthier plant based diet. It has helped our whole family. I remember when I first found your blog thinking that there was no way I could eat like that. I mean butternut squash sauce on pasta instead of cheese? I just didn’t think I could do it. Now it is just the norm for us. My kids think butternut squash mac & “cheese” is the real mac & cheese. When my daughter was born we found out she was sensitive to dairy and soy so already having so many recipes from you that I knew the family loved made that transition to completely avoid those things as a household so much easier. Thanks!
Anyway, on to the instant pot. I think my vitamix and my instant pot are the two best kitchen tools that I own. I really just use the steam function and the manual(pressure cooking) function so I guess it is not much different that just having a pressure cooker. It is amazing though. I make veggie biryani from this recipe https://www.veganricha.com/2015/06/chickpea-rice-pulao.html
all the time. I cook dry beans in 20 minutes, and steam whole sweet potatoes quickly as well. What I love about it is that I can get a meal on the table very quickly and a lot of the cook time I do not need to be in the kitchen near the stove. This means more time with my kids. I would love to see instant pot instructions for some of your recipes. In fact just the other day I was wondering if I could figure out a way to do your glowing lentil soup in it.
-Stacey
Hey Stacey, Thank you so much for the love! That’s so wonderful that the recipes have been a pleasant surprise and so helpful for your family! And thanks for the IP tips….steaming whole sweet potatoes quickly sounds like a DREAM to me. I didn’t even think about that I’ve heard you can do a whole spaghetti squash too…crazy!
Hi Angela! I have used my Instant Pot several times a week for almost a year. I can make my yogurt in it and best of all cooking all of my organic dried beans without the need to soak. The model I have can also bake a cake. I can’t begin to say how it has made my cooking life easier. Most recipes are easily adapted for pressure cooking. There are several FB pages for Vegan IP users. I have bought them for family and given them as gifts. So when I saw you may be contemplating an Oh She Glows cookbook for Instant Pot, I thought it was a match made in heaven!! For busy families it makes batch cooking a breeze. As they say, ‘set it and forget it!’ It holds all the steam and flavour in through the Pressure Cooking process, chillis, soups, stews and sauces, all taste as though they have been simmering all day. You have the best cookbooks I have EVER used, please marry the best kitchen appliance I have ever used and my life will be complete! P.S. The Inventor is Canadian too!
I would love to see instant pot recipes! I have one and have only used it once, but also because I cook so many of your recipes and am not sure how to modify it for the instant pot :)
I used to have instant pot but now just use a stovetop pressure cooker as we were downsizing/decluttering. Its essentially the same, just without all the presets. It is an amazing time saver, especially when i get hone late from work and dont have much energy to cook. I just throw a load of veggies and beans with a can of tomatoes and seasoning and it cooks in 10 minutes. Yes, its not fine dining, but it works when I need quick, wholesome food. And it preserves more nutrients than normal cooking as well as making beans easier to digest! :)
I do have an Instant Pot and love it. I use it a lot. I am not a vegan just a nutrition nut trying to become healthier every day. I would love it if you could develop some recipes for use in the IP. Especially ones that my whole family including three kids would enjoy as well. Thanks!
Instant Pots (actually “multi-cookers” aren’t fads (responding to a comment above). They are just one device that does pressure cooking, slow cooking, and a few things in between. I had a 40-year-old slow cooker (wedding present — got rid of that) and a rice cooker (I kept it because sometimes I use both at the same time, but it’s a rice cooker too), and I got it because I wanted a pressure cooker to cook dried beans. I bought one off of Susan Voisin’s blog recommendation and didn’t realize it was an “Instant Pot” because it’s a different brand (Fagor), but I finally realized what it was! I love it. LOVE IT. I mostly use the slow cooking function and being able to saute in the same container saves time and dish washing. I’d never pressure cooked before, so I was a little nervous — piece of cake. I definitely recommend them.
I have an Instant Pot, but I’ve only used it maybe 2-3 times. I don’t really need huge batches of food, since it’s just me and my 4-year old son. Even if I did make a huge batch of something to freeze, I haven’t liked anything well enough to stock my freezer with it! Now if there was an IP version of some of your soups that tasted just as good as the stove top versions, I would make huge batches for sure! <3
I bought an IP last year on sale and love it! I use it to make rice, soup, and big batches of beans. The best part about it for our family is that you can set it and walk away (no stovetop babysitting). I greatly disagree with it being a ‘fad’, as pressure cookers have been around for quite a while!
I bought an Instant Pot (IP) last year hoping to narrow down my appliances (and get rid of my crock pot, stove top pressure cooker, and rice cooker) but I find that they all sort of serve different functions in their own way. For example, rice is so much better in the rice cooker than the IP. A basic pot of dried beans so much better from my stove top pressure cooker, etc. That being said, I love that I csn sauté the onions in the IP and just throw everything in on top (great for quick and flavorful soups). I’ve tried a few of my go-to OSG recipes in there too. The best so far is the Golden Red Lentil Dal. The trick is to chop the sweet potatoes or carrots larger than you would for the stovetop. Set it to sauté for 10 mins, do the onions until it beeps, add everything else except the spinach (or kale), set it to pressure cook for 10 mins (turn off the warm function), once it beeps let it sit for 10mins and then open the steam valve. Just perfect!
Hi Angela, I love that your “Ask Angela” series includes the date and I was wondering if you would consider adding the date when you post new recipes. Thanks for all you do to promote healthy, happy eating!
I have used the IP on several occasions to make rice or beans and have found that it’s always either too mushy or too crunchy. Given that cooking these items on the stovetop is pretty second nature for me, I haven’t found it to be very helpful. It might be good for soups and chilis, but I like my slow cooker for those so I can taste and adjust. And your coffee sounds amazing!
I like my instant pot but it’s definitely not a necessity. It’s fairly easy to adapt recipes to it, there are how to guides all over the Internet! It did replace my slow cooker as some other readers have mentioned. It is really handy to not have to hover over the stove or worry about stirring or watching the oven.
I love my Instant Pot. I actually own 2. I no longer use my crockpot or my rice cooker. I know someone said they like their rice cooker better but I see little difference after playing around with time and rice/water ratio. I also had a Teflon coated rice cooker I was glad to part with as it had started flaking. I am not vegan, but I do love your recipes. I would love to see IP directions added. I use our pot every week and my husband does his weekly food prep in it. If I had your conversions I would add more of your meals into rotation.
Hello Angela! I got an instant pot this Christmas and I love it. Although I primarily use mine for cooking beans and lentils, I have been looking to tweak your maple baked lentil dish in it. I also like to cook chilli in it. I have been wanting to use it for more recipes, and I think I will experiment with it to cook sweat potatoes for the Oh Em Ge veggie burgers, but I haven’t made many solid recipes yet as there are only a few food blogs that I follow to get the majority of my recipes (you, Ilovevegan, Minimalist Baker, and a dapple of a few others). Having said that, it is amazing for cooking rice and dried beans and I would love to adapt more recipes so that I can just use one pot for certain dishes. Generally speaking, I only use it once a week, but I only cook once a week (in bulk) so it’s a frequent appliance that I use.
Have a splendid day!
Hey Angela!
I’m commenting on your coffee preparation…I love 23 Degrees coffee beans and I use a french press, as well. I am pretty much flying from the time I wake up until my teens are home and safe, which can be pretty late, so I leave mine to brew in the press for 5 full minutes, then I heat some almond milk, pour that in a mug and at the 6 minute mark I push down the plunger!
The instructions that came with my french press (I bought it in Montreal, so it really is french ha ha ha) said to let the coffee brew for 3 to 6 minutes so I chose the deep end! I don’t notice any bitterness, though some coffee afficionados might, and it really helps wake me up in the morning. And at lunch time. And, on Fridays, after supper :)
Oh I love that you heat your almond milk…totally saves the problem of “oh no the almond milk made my coffee too cold!” :) mmm….I’m going to have to try a longer steep! I’ve always heard to steep french press from 2-4 minutes, but maybe it depends on the type of beans?
Heating the almond milk (along with half and half Natural Nutpods and Vanilla Nutpods…a complicated coffee, but simpler than a Starbucks order!) was a game changer…I have to serve it in a thermal cup as I never get to finish a coffee without interruption :) !
I find as long as it is a medium roast, a longer steep in the french press tastes great. I once got busy and my coffee steeped for 26 minutes! I drank it anyways, and it was strong but good. Dark roast beans don’t stand up as well to the longer steep,
I find. There is probably no official reason for this, it’s just my own tastebuds.
I love the sweet and funny captions on your mugs and wish I could find some thermal mugs with funny captions for a morning laugh!
26 minutes…I laughed out loud!! I think we’ve all been there. You must’ve been extra productive that day ;) That’s so funny because I also do half and half Califia: Nutpods! Have you tried the Nutpods Hazelnut flavour yet? I haven’t…I heard it wasn’t as good as French Vanilla, but then I heard it was better so now I think I need to order one next time.
Well, I go through lots of Nutpods and ordered a box of 28 of them last month (prepared for the apocolypse ha ha) but I have to say, I don’t enjoy the hazelnut flavoured one. I inhale Natural and French Vanilla and the Pumpkin Spice (I was even hoarding my last few Pumpkin Spice until an awesome plant-based blogger gave me some for Xmas!) but the Hazelnut just isn’t worth ordering, in my humble opinion :(
Off topic, but after reading through these Instapot recommendations, and seeing that your Vegan All-Purpose Cheese Sauce can be made in it, I wonder if your Chili from your Cheese Nachos on Oh She Goows Everyday would turn out? I orided myself yesterday on running through the grocery store, collecting all of the ingredients for the dish iff by heart.
When I returned home and told my sons that I’d be making your nachos recipe, they were both thrilled…then one of them wanted your Chili Cheese Nachos and the other wanted your Cheerful Nachos! Argh. ?♀️If I could whip up one in an instapot and one on the stovetop they’d both be happy on Family Day and I’d have yum leftovers this week!
Thanks for weighing in! :) I also buy the Nutpods in bulk (free shipping over $50…sooo we “have” to right?).
Looking forward to seeing your recipes using the IP.
I have an IP! I have the 2 year old 8 quart model.
I have made lots of curries and stir fries and soups. So many of your recipes would work!